Monday, March 19, 2012

Homage to Catalonia 2

Everybody says that the best climbing in the world is not in French Riviera, but in Catalonia. So when opportunity presented itself and I got chance to go there for one week with Muriel Sarkany, I went there to convince myself that such claim is false.Impression one: Cold. Cold, cold, cold.The bloody place should be called Siberia bis. I was frozen for sixteen hours a day and exhausted of cold for remaining eight hours. My tent was covered with ice each morning and there were icicles around one and half feet long.

Impression two:Grand Cova. The cave looking like Galetas shrinked because of being washed in too high temperature. But there are fifty routes here, not five. Climbing style is a bit like Grotte du Blave. Crimps, blocks, long moves, not a chance to use your feet in cunning way, paradise for plastic rats. Here the must think they could climb.

Impression three: Landscape. After restricted horizons of French Riviera I am freaked out by open plains of Catalonia. As far as the eyecan see just fields and fields and fields, around which are scattered hamlets lost in the middle of nowhere. Terry Pratchett drive through here to get inspiration for his village Bad Ass.

Impression four:Climbers. Bunch of lazy buggers, I would send them to Michelin factory to make tires. They go to bed at 8 PM, wake up at 10AM, nobody works, even though nobody works everybody have everything and nobody is stressed. That's why half of Norway and third of United Kingdom moved to Santa Linya. With my regular office job I am rare breed indeed and every body feels pity for me. Only exception from the previous rule is Mumu, we like her very much because she is almost perfect.

Impression five: Moon. It was full moon, which is bout the same everywhere.

Impression six: Drivers (and traffic). Catalonians are a bunch of insane maniacs, they should not be issued driving licences, even worse than Marseille. I was driving just ten above the limit and did not overtake where it was forbidden, that made me the most law abiding driver of whole province. I have only seen respect to the rules once, when in village Boldú a flock of sheep crossed a road on the pedestrian crossing. Unfortunately, my DSLR was hidden in trunk, so I did not manage to take a picture.Impression seven: Catalonia is richer country than French Riviera, even door get some kind of solidity about it.